NIC-10 swimming: Hononegah nips Guilford for 8th title in row

Saturday

FREEPORT — The tune may change in Camden Leonard’s head when he begins to pull away from the field, but the song remains the same for his Hononegah teammates.

Leonard breezed to a pair of NIC-10 individual titles, including winning the 200 individual medley by six seconds Saturday when he swam to the imaginary strains of “Amsterdam” by Nothing But Thieves.

“I didn’t know if I would be able to push myself at the end there since I was out by myself, but I try to get a song stuck in my head and I used that to push myself further,” Leonard said.

Hononegah did not need to search for external motivation in search of its eighth consecutive conference boys swim title. Guilford pushed the Indians every step of the way, never trailing by more than 11 points and taking a two-point lead when Viking junior Treighton Hoang won the next-to-last event, the 100-yard breaststroke.

But Hononegah won the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay. Guilford still could have tied the Indians for the title, but Boylan edged Guilford by four tenths of a second for second place in the relay. That gave Hononegah the team title with 256 points to Guilford’s 254, followed by Boylan (233), Belvidere Co-op (151), Freeport (146), Auburn (131), Harlem (101) and East (38).

“I knew I was out ahead, but we had to count on Boylan to help beat Guilford. That was pretty strange,” said Leonard, who swam the final leg on that relay, “but we’re not opposed to it.”

“That’s crazy,” Guilford’s Hoang, who also took second in the 200 IM, said of Boylan helping its archrivals win another title. “But that’s just how it plays out.

“It was very exciting. Even though we got second, it was fun.”

Fun from the very start, when Guilford won the opening swimming event, the 200 medley relay.

“A lot of people don’t give us enough credit, but we work hard during the season and prove it in varsity conference,” said Blake Larys, who also swam on Guilford’s 400 free relay.

Kyle Thurston had three seconds and a third for Guilford, swimming on two relays and taking second in the 100 and 200 free. In the 200, Thurston was only 5/100ths of a second behind Auburn’s Mitchell Johnson (1:50.43).

“That’s the most fun I’ve had all year,” said Thurston, who improved his seed time by five seconds and finished three seconds ahead of his pre-meet goal. “I really like this race, that’s what propelled me to that time.”

Auburn’s Johnson (200 and 500 free), Hononegah’s Leonard (200 IM and 100 free) and Belvidere Co-op’s Devin Green (100 backstroke, 100 butterfly) each won two individual events. Leonard also won two last year, while Johnson and Green won their first titles.

“I was hoping to go faster,” Green said. “A couple of kids from Sterling are waiting for me (at sectionals). They will be good competition to go faster. I really hope to drop a lot of time next week.”

“It was very hard going back-to-back,” Johnson said. “My heart was still pumping a lot after the 50 back in the medley, but I was able to push through it. I just told myself it’s going to be really good to win and pushed as hard as I could as if winning was a life-or-death thing.”

Other individual winners were Belvidere’s Jacob Hedberg in diving and Hononegah’s Jacob McCabe in the 50 free.

McCabe also swam on both of Hononegah’s winning relay teams, the 200 and 400 free.

“Relays have been a major part of our success in the last few years,” McCabe said. “That helps us pull through.”

This time with a little nudge from their archrivals.

“I don’t mind helping Hononegah with the win,” said Anthony Anderson, who swam on that final relay for Boylan. “They swam well.”